The famous detective couldn't have guessed now, as he lay in deep untroubled sleep, that he was soon to face the most harrowing and soul-destroying experience of his entire professional life: that in the process he was going to be brought to the brink of utter despair - and suicide, the final solution.

For the seeds of destruction - Sexton Blake's destruction - had been sown...

He was a killer. Name of Nicky Deutsch. His face was thin, feral and mean under sleek, slickly-smarmed jet-black hair. He looked just what he was; unutterably vicious. And he hated Sexton Blake with a murderous, cancerous hatred. For all he had suffered in his years on the Moor, he swore a swift and terrible vengeance...

The beautiful Delia Murphy feared Nicky Deutsch. And the bonds that fear forged were strong bonds. She would lie for this man; she would cheat for him; she would do anything he demanded of her. She knew she could not, she dare not, refuse... And she would fit nicely into the plan for Blake's destruction.

Splash Kirby had never seen Blake so listless or wan. He looked like a man under sentence of death. And that, thought Kirby, was just about the score. Sexton Blake was under sentence of professional death!